Of Problems and Concussions
by nooziewoozie
Summary: Uzumaki Kushina had a problem. And that problem was that she wanted to screw Namikaze Minato every which way that was possible. She was also willing to attempt ways that were anatomically impossible. --MinaKushi, and discussions that go nowhere. Maybe.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Of Problems and Concussions **  
Characters/Pairings**: Minato/Kushina (who are quickly becoming my OTP or something), lots of Rin (which turned out to be a total surprise, whaddaya know?). As always, Kakashi and Jiraiya make cameos, but this time they may or may not be joined by the Sandaime and assorted others.**  
Rating:** Uh, T. For a couple naughty words and adult concepts. Rating might go up later on, depending on where this story wants to take itself. Seriously, guys, my stuff tends to go in wild and crazy directions all on its own and all I can do is hang on to its beltloops. Oy. **  
Notes:** I need to get off this MinaKushi kick thing, but it's seriously not letting me. Also, this happens to be my first multi-parter in _ages_, so be nice. (Well, better than than a one-shot longer than your arm.) It'll be a three-four chapter thing. The next bit will have Minato's perspective, and as for the rest, I haven't decided yet, as my writing is a fickle, fickle thing. Also, this is set in canon!verse, and stands independently from any other MinaKushi fic I've written. And as always, please remember to review!

* * *

Uzumaki Kushina had a problem.

And that problem was that she wanted to screw Namikaze Minato every which way that was possible. (She was also quite willing to attempt some ways that were said to anatomically _impossible_. But, hey, they were ninja and he _was_ a genius. Something had to give, right?)

_Well_, she supposed, as she flung a kunai and dodged a thrust from a particularly troublesome Iwa-nin, _it's not that much of a problem. Not really._ She danced delicately around yet another swipe from the enemy, and then deemed it appropriate to jam a senbon needle in his left eye. _There. That ought to keep you down._

Her infatuation with Minato (and she absolutely refused to add any simpering honorifics to his name, damn it; she wasn't a fangirl, she just lusted after him—and there so too was a _difference_!) wasn't generally a problem. Besides, every female (and a good portion of the males, she'd bet) in the village had all wanted a piece of Minato's very fine derriere at one point or another. (It was practically an initiation rite of womanhood, from what she'd heard.) But still, the desire had persisted far longer in her than she had initially anticipated.

And up until recently, it _hadn't_ been a problem.

So she had wanted to have sex with him rather badly. She was healthy and young, and he was gorgeous. Carnal urges, as inconvenient as they were, quite honestly were never a problem. No, that had started when she had began sprouting off feelings for him: honest-to-god, squishy feelings. She wanted—god help her—she wanted him to _love_ her. It was all his fault, too--he had that sad smile (when he wasn't grinning like a ferocious fool, but she loved that grin, too) and beautiful hands (with long fingers that tapered to elegant points, hands that both nurtured and killed, that destroyed and built, and that dichotomy intrigued her like nothing else) and the sweetest, kindest manner and a kind of emotional emptiness about him that she wanted to fill. And that threw a wrench into the whole affair: very little truly mattered to Uzumaki Kushina, but she would rather saw off a hand and give up her career than give Minato a reason to doubt his friendship with her. And as grand as her devotion to friendship sounded in her head, though, in real life, it translated to a lot of heartache and sexual urges. Unfulfilled ones, at that.

She muttered a curse as two more Iwa-nin descended on her. On a normal day, they wouldn't have given her this much trouble, but the ambush had caught her and her team—which, incidentally, included Minato, but also a Nara clan member by the name of Shikaku and a medic-nin named Kaga Hanako—at the tail end of a rather dangerous, exhausting and challenging mission. It was the worst possible time to be attacked: injuries needed to be tended to and chakra depletion was imminent. It was made even worse by the fact that the attackers had a tailed beast with them—and it had gone for Minato, chakra bubbling sickeningly and eyes stretched wide with blood-lust.

She wasn't _that_ worried about him—Minato was hailed as a genius for many reasons, and one of them was that he was bloody practical and cool-headed when it came to battle. He would be fine, she told herself firmly. The four squads that accompanied the demon container, however, would sing a different song. She couldn't let Minato face all that alone—she loved and respected and lusted after the man, but she also was a ninja.

And ninja, especially the sort of ninja that Kushina was, didn't let lone teammates do all the dirty work.

They circled her like a pair of jackals, and eyed her with glints in their eyes that left a sour taste tanging in the back of her mouth. One dove in, feinted to the side. She dodged the blow deftly, keeping an ear out for his teammate. She spun away from her initial attacker gracefully, rounded in on the second. _Graceful and deadly as a whirlpool._ Victory was imminent, her kunai mere centimeters from his neck—

When the third one took her by surprise. He slammed into her with brutish force. She felt her head hit something hard—a finger on her left hand bent in a way it shouldn't—and there was pain everywhere. She wondered, dimly, how she had managed to miss an attacker of _this_ girth, and decided that pondering her love-life was strictly something she did off-mission from now on. No exceptions. Provided, of course, that she survived _this_.

She noted vaguely that he was leering at her in a decidedly unpleasant manner, which meant that he had to die.

If only she could find a way to arrange that, but that pesky black blurriness kept clouding her vision and all her fingers could do was twitch ineffectually around the kunai she'd somehow kept a hold of. That should alarm her (_concussion, internal bleeding, broken bones_, _**get up, damn it**__!_), as should the Iwa-nin's hand groping her front and hastily riffling through her clothes. Idiots, she thought weakly. If they were looking for the scroll, they were going at the wrong person.

Suddenly, the Iwa-nin just wasn't there anymore, and she once again felt her body slammed into a rather unfortunately placed rock protrusion. _Ouch_, she thought. _That's gotta mean a broken rib or two_. There was screaming—though human or chakra in origin, she really couldn't tell—and then gentle hands were turning her over, feathering over her ribcage.

A wave of pain washed over her as the hands probed her left side. _Oh, yeah. Definitely broken. _

She passed out moments later.

* * *

When she came to, the first thing she noticed was that the ceiling was white (_ceiling? What ceiling? Where exactly is this?_). The second thing was that she had a blinding headache.

"Son of a _bitch_," she hissed and shut her eyes again. "_Ow_." There was also pain down below, but that was more residual and felt more like the pleasant sort of pain she got after a thorough training session. The angry jackhammers in her head, though, were a different matter.

"Oh!" came a surprised voice from somewhere to her left. "You're awake!" A young medic, small and dark-haired, stood at her side, flipping through charts. Her hitae-ate, very comfortingly, had the Konoha emblem emblazoned across it. "You're in Konoha General. I'm Rin, by the way. How are you feeling?"

"Ah…" Kushina croaked. One of Minato's students, she remembered. "Headache. Really bad one." She took inventory as she spoke: her entire left side and right hand were a mass of dully thudding pain, but other than that she seemed fine. And alive. Alive was good. Alive in Konoha was even better.

"And my teammates? Are they all right?"

"Right as rain, I believe. You got off with the worst of it," Rin answered, scribbling away, purple rectangles bright on her cheeks under the harsh florescent lights. "What's your name?"

"Uzumaki Kushina," she answered automatically. "What--?"

"Who's the current Hokage?"

"Sarutobi Hiruzen-sama. Why—?"

"What village are we in?"

"Konoha! What's with the questions?"

"Just routine procedure, Kushina-san," Rin answered serenely. "I wanted to make sure of your level of mental consciousness and concentration capacity. You're doing much better than expected. We'll have to carry out more extensive tests, of course, but I'll get to that later."

_Pertinent information first_. "How long was I out?"

"A day, give or take a few hours. You had us very worried, but I think we'll be okay now. We do need to some tests and such, and of course you won't be allowed out on missions until you completely recover; but for now, it's one day at a time, okay?"

All right. That was to be expected, after all.

Kushina licked her lips. "What…happened?" The events that led up to her sorry state were a blank, and it disconcerted her.

"Memory loss, both retrograde and antegrade," Rin said, making a note on her chart, "is quite common, you see, after a concussion." She looked down into Kushina's eyes steadily. "In fact, Kushina-san, we weren't sure you were going to make it at all, so…well, in any case, you're quite lucky. You've got a major concussion"—which would explain the headache—"two broken ribs on your left side"—which would further explain the dull throbbing that her torso was giving off—"and a broken finger on your right hand. The middle one, I believe." She gestured with her pen. "Add that to a whole host of abrasions and contusions. I'll say it again, Kushina-san—you're quite lucky to have survived."

That…that sounded quite nasty. But she would think about that later; she pushed her brush with death to back of her mind and compartmentalized it. She would worry about it then, where no one could see her shake like a feather and vomit like a rookie after a first kill.

In any case, no wonder she felt like utter shit. Kushina shook her head, or tried to; the blearing pain in her head wouldn't let her get very far in that endeavor. Still she persisted, "Thank you. For telling me all of that and saving me life. But…but what _happened_? During the mission, I mean."

"_That_. From what I know, you tried—"

"To take on _two squads_ of Iwa jounin—_on your own_, might I add—and nearly died in the process."

Minato loomed in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, perpetually smiling eyes now dark with anger.

Kushina gulped.

"Rin," he said conversationally without looking away from Kushina's eyes, "would you take a look at Kakashi's arm? He overextended himself. Chakra burns."

"Again?" Rin asked, exasperated. "Sure thing, Sensei. Rest up, Kushina-san. I'll send someone over with something to help with the pain and nausea in a bit."

"What nausea?" Kushina asked, alarmed.

"It'll come. Don't wear her out, Sensei. I mean it." Rin walked out of the room.

And it was just her, all alone with Minato. An angry Minato, she corrected mentally, and gulped again. He sat down heavily in her bedside chair, steepling his fingers and peering at her over them.

"Eight Iwa jounin, Kushina-san. _Eight_. Do you have any idea what odds you were fighting against?" He spoke at last.

She studied a particularly discolored corner of the ceiling.

"Eight against one, Kushina-san," he continued, voice quietly hard and eyes flat. "That's one in eight chances that you would survive, and considering your state of exhaustion and depleted chakra levels, even less than that. I'm no stranger to bad odds, Kushina-san. I know you're not, either."

Her eyes found themselves drawn to his by the inexorable weight of his voice. He gazed down at her steadily, eyes hard and bright as diamonds, his handsome, even features set in a grave mask. She suddenly wished she wasn't lying down.

"But those odds weren't merely bad, Kushina-san. They were _suicidal_." He touched the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. "As for what happened, you were taken down by a sensor that hid himself during your engagement with two others with his squad. They were, as far as I could tell, trying to find the scroll we were sent to recover." There's an odd, strangled sort of quality to his last few words.

There was silence. Kushina licked her lips again. "To be perfectly fair, Minato, I was doing well until the sensor bastard blindsided me." She took a breath and continued. "And…and I couldn't let you take all of them on alone."

She felt his anger surge through him rather than saw it. He seemed bigger, his eyes sharper. "You could have. You _should_ have."

As uneasy as Kushina felt, that was just irrational. A small beam or irritation fought its way through her mind, and she clung on to it. "You were fighting a _tailed beast_ at the time," she croaked. "A few jounin weren't that much trouble. I mean, relatively speaking. You were running out of your special kunai, and you know it. Shikaku-san's leg was broken. Kaga-san was out of chakra. We were a team, Minato. What, did you expect me to sit around and do nothing?"

"I expected you to act in a manner that was neither reckless nor irresponsible," he gritted out. He was angry now, angrier than he'd been when he'd walked in, angrier than she had ever seen him. "You may not have been outclassed, but you were definitely outnumbered. There's a limit to your recklessness, Kushina-san, I know there is. I suggest you find it before I recommend you for deskwork. _Permanently_."

His words robbed her of breath, and not in the romantic sort of way, either. Her cheeks lit up with a combination of shame and anger.

"Get better soon, Kushina-san." He rose from his seat in one fluid motion before she could say anything and stalked to the door. When he was nearly out, he rested a calloused hand against the doorframe, and murmured, "I don't like losing teammates, Kushina-san. I really, really don't."

And then he was gone.

Kushina's throat was painfully dry, her head throbbed, and her stomach began heaving in earnest. She was also angry, irritated, and possessed by an oddly strong desire to smack Minato across the back of his shaggy blond head.

She winced. They had argued, but nothing had been settled between them.

* * *

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Of Problems and Concussions **  
Characters/Pairings**: Minato/Kushina (who are quickly becoming my OTP or something), lots of Rin and a smattering of Kakashi. Jiraiya, that lovable old man, is mentioned. **  
Rating:** Uh, T. For a couple naughty words and adult concepts. Sorry, all. This one wasn't one of those 'crouching lemons, hidden perversions' kind of things, you know?**  
Notes:** Yay part two! The next installment (which is the final one) is written and awaiting editing, so that should be up as soon as I can manage it. Also, yay Minato point-of-view. This is significantly longer than the first bit, as Minato is much more wordy than I'd given him credit for. (I might also have turned him into one sick chicken, but whatever.) Also, everything even vaguely related to medicine here I have picked out of my mother's brain. I find that talking to her about this stuff is much more fun than poking around the internet for it, given that she's a) hilarious, and b) an actual doctor, and as such, can describe real-life cases of concussions, details from which I can, in turn, stuff into my fics. And as always, please remember to review!

* * *

Namikaze Minato had a problem.

And she had fire-red hair, a temper the size of the Tsuchikage's ego, and hazel eyes that seemed to shift color depending on the light and the ferocity of her smile.

_And_, he thought with an edge of panic, _she's nearly dead_. He watched with an intensity that was unlike him as Rin examined Uzumaki Kushina's body, running chakra-covered hands over it and pausing only to make hurried notes on a clipboard.

"MRI and CAT scan, stat, and IV piggy-back of Vicodin. I need a medic with specs in orthopedics to take a look at her ribs and skull, check for a depressed fracture…" Rin rattled off instructions to the nurses around her.

"Well?" he asked when she had finally finished, and nurses wheeled the body away. He watched it go with a roiling feeling in his stomach.

There was a worrying furrow between Rin's brows. "It doesn't look too good, Sensei," she said in that quiet manner of hers. "Broken ribs, broken finger, abrasions and contusions on every scrap of uncovered skin. She's lucky she hasn't got a punctured lung. But that's nothing compared to that concussion. I can't tell where it's bleeding, if there's been bruising or tearing. I've ordered scans of course, an MRI and CAT scan to start…"

He was no medic, but he did know a thing or two about head injuries. "Rin," he asked, "just how bad is it?"

She sighed and pulled off her latex gloves, looking older than her years. "She's been unconscious for half a day, Sensei. That's very, very bad news. I can't tell you when she'll get up, or even if she'll make it that far. And even when—if, really—she does, I can't tell you about any neurological damage she might have sustained until I see it." Rin shook her head, sending chocolate-colored hair flying. "Headaches, dizziness, cognitive impairments, difficulty making decisions, concentrating…"

"Not good at all, huh?" he asked after a moment of silence. He winced, his words jarringly misplaced, too inane for the situation at hand.

"No," she said quietly, and she looked him over with her quiet eyes that saw too much. But there was a unique kind of helplessness that plagued her: she loved the men in her life selflessly, fiercely, but there was so little she could do for them—they outstripped her, easily, and all she could do to help was patch up the injuries she could see and send them home to heal the cuts and bruises they had on their insides, because she couldn't heal those. Minato understood all of that, and understood, again, that Obito still stood like a sentinel among them, more potent dead than he ever was alive.

"No," she said again, for only something to say. "But I'll look after her the best I can, Sensei, see what I can do."

There was nothing else to say, so she made her way out and left Minato to his thoughts.

He leaned against a wall and closed his eyes.

* * *

That night, he dreamed about her—hair dancing in a halo around her face, color whipped into cheeks that had been chillingly white while he carried her back to Konoha. She laughed at him, held her arms out to him, smile wide and welcoming, holding the promise of the entire world, and all her could think about was running to her because everything else was utterly, utterly meaningless.

He woke in a cold sweat and sat up reading the rest of the night.

* * *

The next morning, he ran into Kakashi sporting spectacular chakra burns across his left arm, and took it upon himself to escort his former student to the hospital, because, knowing Kakashi, the youth would drag himself home, sleep for days, and express mild concern for his arm upon waking.

It was also time, he figured, to face his damning failure to protect.

He found her alive instead.

And the inferno of tightly wound emotion broke and flared.

* * *

His week had gone downhill from there.

The paperwork after the mission and ambush had been hell; and as Hokage-in-training, he had to slog through all of it. There were a total of twenty-seven-and-a-half forms to fill out for that mission alone—mission reports, injuries notifications, payment invoices, certification of hospital records —the list went on far longer than Minato cared to remember. Sarutobi-sensei had also seen fit to lob all sorts of busy-work at him, so he found himself sourly trudging through what seemed like all the paper in Konoha's bureaucracy and then some. He sat at his desk for long hours day after day, pen scratching away on scrolls and a headache whining behind his eyes. It was important work, he knew, and it was just as important that he learned to handle it all, but he wished it didn't make his brain turn to mush and dribble out of his ears.

His development of the Rasengan didn't get much further either. He'd managed to manipulate the shape into a sphere of dense chakra, but adding wind chakra was proving much more difficult than he had anticipated which further caused his mood to blacken.

And underneath it all thrummed the sickening thought that he had robbed a comrade of her mind, her ninjutsu, and possibly her livelihood. And then _threatened_ her when she was down.

He avoided thinking about it, because thinking about her made him either very angry (and anger was never an emotion he was very comfortable with) or filled him with self-loathing (which he was much more familiar with, but didn't enjoy feeling at all).

And guilty (which was something else he had plenty of experience with and didn't like at all). As he squinted at fine print on a scroll or melded spinning chakra, her shocked face and wide, hurt eyes danced in his head. He had hurt her—her feelings, her pride, her loyalty—and quite possibly ruined their friendship, and the thought made his mood sour like not even mountains of paperwork could. It made him uncomfortable, her unwavering loyalty and commitment to teamwork, and he didn't like how it made his heart quicken with both fear and something he was reluctant to name, that she had put herself in harm's path to save his skin. _His_ skin, of all people.

He didn't deserve that kind of loyalty; what man like him, who couldn't even save his students—one from death, one from loneliness, one from helplessness, deserved that?

He also didn't want to examine the raw rage that had coursed through him when he had caught sight of the Iwa-nin pawing at her while she lay helpless. The very picture had been jarring, disturbing in its distance from reality: Kushina-san fought and bit and scratched like a wildcat, not lie yielding and still during assault, and his control had broken as icy fingers dripped down his spine.

He had killed the ninja, and he had not been merciful.

* * *

Rin brought him dinner and tea one night when he was stuck in his office.

"How is she?" he asked midway through a lull in conversation, trying to be nonchalant and failing miserably, if only because Rin knew him too well.

"She's fine, Sensei." Rin frowned at him. "And I can't tell you anymore than that. Doctor-patient confidentiality, remember?"

"Not even to your old teacher?" he smiled at her charmingly.

She smiled back, but said, "Sorry, not even to you. If it helps, there are confidential files on her status in the Hokage's office. You know. If you're curious. Which you're not, of course."

His smile widened. "Of course not."

"I've got to get going, Sensei. Enjoy your dinner."

"Of course. And again, thank you."

"Drink your tea."

"I will."

"Take the aspirin if you get a headache. The Alka-Seltzers are in the cabinet to your right, in case your acidity acts up again."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"And don't stay here all night, okay? I don't want to have to deal with your stiff neck in the morning."

"Yes, mother."

That scared her out. He waited for her soft footsteps to fade, counted to a hundred, and slipped out of his office.

* * *

He peered at Kushina-san's file in the dim light of Sarutobi-sama's office, feeling a bit like a dirty old man. He wondered for a second of that was what Jiraiya-sensei felt like when he wandered off to peep on bathing women, and dismissed the thought. Jiraiya-sensei had the rather disturbing propensity to lose all morals and codes of decent behavior when confronted with scantily-clad women.

_Uzumaki Kushina_, the report read, _shows all signs of normalcy after the injuries sustained on her person during the last mission in which she was an active participant. Injuries resulting from blunt trauma, such as her ribs and finger, have all been healed and said parts are back to previous functional levels. All abrasions and contusions have likewise been healed. _

_The patient also sustained a major and complex concussion on the right side of the head. Following a GCS score of 14, the patient was determined to be at low risk of bleeding. MRIs and CAT scans all indicate that there is no abnormal bruising or tearing in the brain. The concussion, against all odds, has not impaired the patient's cognitive, decision-making, and/or problem-solving skills. There are no observable signs of alterations in her behavior, apart from an increasing tendency to be irate, though this could be attributed to the patient's oft-professed distaste of hospital confinement. The patient was determined to be at low risk of bleeding. _

_Other symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, nausea and sensitivity to light are persistent. As the concussion was severe and complex, this is to be expected, but whether or not they will be chronic or fade cannot be determined at this time. Further observation is required._

_Medicine prescribed: Ergotamine, 200 mg tablets, to be taken as needed, oral. For headache, nausea, sensitivity to light. _

_Recommendation: four-to-six week leave with bed-rest and abstinence from strenuous physical activity and chakra-molding for the first month or until the symptoms fade. Gradual reintroduction to physical activity and chakra-molding should take place during the rest of the leave. Weekly appointments with the Neurology and Psychiatrics departments and attending medics for the first two months and later as needed as determined by patient and chief attending medics. C-class missions only until cleared by chief attending medic. _

It was nowhere near as extensive as he would have liked it to be, but it was nonetheless what he had expected: pared down to the bare bones. He replaced the file and headed for home, discomfort that rankled suspiciously like guilt curling in his stomach.

* * *

He dreamed about her again that night.

This time, he saw her across a battlefield, one fraught with energy and flying jutsu and weaponry. She danced with her whips, an eerily enchanting promenade of lashing leather, glinting metal and flashing eyes. Her hair flew around her body in a bloody crescendo of fire, scintillating and deadly. She turned and pirouetted and bounded with the grace of a hunting leopardess, intent gaze flitting between enemies, feet light and sure, moving so fast they barely touched the ground as she whirled.

She was painted with fire and brimstone, branded in his mind in oranges and reds of sunsets and battles.

He woke, panting and painfully aroused.

* * *

He avoided her after that, until Rin, armed with lunch, ice tea and a slouching Kakashi, ambushed him in his office.

"Don't you two have work to be doing?" he asked snidely. His lack of sleep and lack of progress on the Rasengan had caught up with him, and he swore the paperwork was breeding.

"Just got off my morning shift, Sensei. I thought I'd drag Kakashi-kun along," Rin said happily, setting out a lunch of vegetable stir-fry noodles and orange chicken. "Seriously, I can't do this for you forever."

"You need a girlfriend or something," Kakashi piped up, his one visible eye curling into a crescent moon.

"Or something," he retorted. He liked females like he liked sushi or a good book—cerebral appreciation with no emotional edge. He wasn't one to wax poetic about the 'downy breasts of the goddess of the night, plump in the moonlight, milky in pallor and silken in their texture'; that was strictly Jiraiya-sensei's domain. (And ever since he had heard something about midnight ceremonies—'initiation rites' they were called, though he couldn't fathom what cult they were for—involving black magic, a goat, and his used tissues, he had kept a wise distance. Rin had laughed it off, albeit uneasily, so he refrained from asking. Some things were better off unsaid.)

Besides, the reason he didn't have a significant other, her mused, nursing a glass of iced tea and squinting at a particularly verbose document, was that he had never quite found a woman with enough—enough character, enough tenacity, enough—well, he wasn't sure what it was, exactly, that elusive quality he desired (though in all fairness, his ninja career had hardly given him enough leisure time in which to ponder upon it), but he had never quite found someone who would welcome his faults and his foibles along with his exploits. They all saw the genius, but wanted to know nothing of the man simmering beneath.

And none had rushed to his defense like Kushina-san had, either.

He wanted to squash that thought, squash it until it was a nothing more than a smear, but he heaved a sigh and blotted a spot of ink on the scroll on his desk.

He wasn't proud of the way he had acted in her room. He hadn't meant to dress her down like that; anger that should have been directed inward had found itself drawn to her much too easily—it was shamefully simple to blame her for being reckless and irresponsible rather than lash himself for not being competent enough. She had scared him, her and her willingness to give up her life for him, to _defend_ him. It was…and odd kind of fear, one he didn't like at all, like something infinitely precious was falling off an infinitely high precipice and he was lunging—in desperation, in vain—to snatch it back.

In any case, it was time he manned up and apologized.

* * *

He conned her appointment schedule out of Rin the next day, and timed it so he would be taking his oft-ignored lunch break just as she emerged from the hospital.

He caught sight of her before she saw him. He sighed; she looked well and strong, her skin having regained its peach blush and her movements unhindered by injuries. Her hair, glossy and shining in the sunlight, danced around her hips, which brought to mind another sort of dancing, and he shut that thought up with gusto.

She finally caught sight of him and stopped, brows furrowed, face unreadable. Minato panicked slightly, then panicked some more because he didn't make a habit of panicking, and thus, didn't quite know how to deal with it. Kushina-san was not unreadable—her face was an open, expressive book, a painting of emotion; she wasn't a typical kunoichi, having specialized in pure blunt-force combat and having absolutely no skill for the special brand of feminine dissemination that was familiar to so many of her female comrades. But now, he couldn't read her face, couldn't discern the ripples in her wide hazel eyes, couldn't decipher the quirk of her mouth.

It disconcerted him. He knew next to nothing about her—he knew her combat abilities and what justus she had mastery over, but nothing important: did not know what she liked for breakfast and what she thought of the Academy's emphasis on rigid rule-adhering behavior, what her favorite foods were, what expressions she would make in the throes of passion, or how her hand would clutch at the sheets, or the weight of her sleep-laced smile in the morning, or how her hands curled around a cup of coffee or how--if, really--they tucked under her chin.

He did not give voice to his thoughts. Instead, he smiled widely and asked, "Would you like to join me for lunch?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:**Of Problems and Concussions**  
Characters/Pairings**: Minato, Kushina, and a very, very small cameo by Teuchi-san. (That's the dude who owns Ichiraku Ramen, by the way.) **  
Rating:** T, I suppose. **  
Notes:** It's done. It's also kind of unfunny and kind of serious and kind of...well, crappy. This has gone through as much editing as I can take, at this point. And besides, classes start tomorrow, and from what I hear, organic chemistry's a bitch. If I don't get this up now, well, I wouldn't touch it again until winter break or something. As always, I would love to hear all of your feedback to this very long conversation I'm going to make these two have. Please, remember to review!

* * *

_Minato_, Kushina thought grumpily, _for all his genius, has awful timing_. The least he could have done was give her enough time to sort out her conflicting feelings towards him after that nasty lecture he had given her, but no, of course not: he'd find her, of course, when the hurt was still blistering and anger was still simmering in her mind, and smile that stupid smile of his, and ask her out to lunch. She didn't smile back at him, schooling her face into a blank mask, and refused to listen to the happy, clamoring hormones that were exclaiming over his cheekbones.

She was supposed to be _mad_ at him, damn it.

But lunch? Lunch was fine. Lunch she could handle. With _finesse_, even.

"Sure," she replied, proud of the way her voice had modulated itself evenly. "Have you got a place in mind?"

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, bright blue eyes skittering away for a second before snapping up to her own. "I'm not much of an eater, but I'm game for anything you want."

"All right then," she said, "follow me." She turned without waiting for him and began an easy pace down the street. He caught up with her in seconds, his easy, loping stride a far sight longer than her own. He walked a step in front of her and turned around, walking backwards.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

She blinked at him. "You sure you can walk like that?"

"Sure I can," he grinned, and sidestepped a streetlight and a cabbage merchant's cart with maddening grace. "Can't you?"

"Show-off," she teased good-naturedly, but belatedly remembered that she was mad at him. It was entirely too easy to fall back into her old camaraderie with him, to laugh and to joke with ease. She cursed his smile, his affable nature. She couldn't _stay_ mad at him, and it didn't help that with passing time, the edge of her resentment had dulled and didn't sting quite as badly as it first had—but they _did_ have things to discuss, she decided firmly. That conversation in her hospital room that horrible day needed resolution, and besides, he had been a grade-A jerk. He was simply lucky that she no longer wanted rip out a chunk of his hide as reparation, pretty face notwithstanding.

"I hope you like Ramen," she breezily remarked, stopping by a modest bar. "Ichiraku's, my favorite."

* * *

She slid into the seat next to him, and called out, "Oi, Teuchi-san! Guess who's back!"

She had surprised him with her acceptance of his offer, and she had surprised him even more with her easy teasing during their short walk. But he had seen the shutters behind her eyes close, so quick and so sudden, he could almost hear them clack as they slammed shut. He fought the urge to wince. The strength of the desire for her smile—a real one, when her eyes turned into crescents and her cheeks went wide and honest pleasure rolled off her—that was clamoring inside him alarmed him, but that was a problem her could deal with another day.

Preferably one when she was talking to him again.

"Ah, Kushina-san, back so soon, I see!" exclaimed a heavy-set man behind the counter. "And you've brought a friend!"

"As though I could stay away! Minato, this Ramen's the best in all of Konoha. I'll have a salt Ramen. What'll you be having?"

"The same," he replied, never having indulged in Ramen that originated outside of prepackaged plastic containers before. He preferred soba, himself.

"Be right with you," Teuchi-san said, and busied himself, but didn't leave them enough time to begin a serious conversation. Two bowls of steaming Ramen soon sat before them. He blinked. The sight was unexpectedly savory: the braised beef gleamed appealingly, the chopped scallions unexpectedly added a dollop of bright color, and the smell was heavenly.

He found watching Kushina eat more interesting than eating, though the Ramen was unexpectedly delicious: she dug in with gusto, took big bites and didn't act like the fact that he was witnessing her eating like a man bothered her in the least. Still, he thought idly, while his eyes followed the movement of her mouth and throat, glided over her face as she closed her eyes with ecstasy and savored the flavor after every bite, for a woman who wasn't even trying, she was doing a damn good job of unraveling him.

"Not hungry?" she asked at last, wiping at her mouth with a napkin. She gestured to his mostly-full bowl.

"Hungry," he replied, and spooned a bit of broth in his mouth. "Not all of us have such enthusiasm for food, Kushina-san," he smiled, hoping that it was charming and would entice her into bantering with him again.

A beat of silence passed between them.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you calling me _fat_?"

_What the hell? _He choked on a stray noodle.

She snickered at him while she pounded his back. "You need to work on how you smooth-talk your way around us women-folk, Minato. Most of us don't like attention drawn to how much we consume."

He finally stopped coughing. "That," he panted, "wasn't what I meant." It seemed important to clarify this point, but a bubble of pleasure had lodged itself at the base of his throat. It had been rather mean-spirited and completely at his expense, but she'd _laughed_.

She attempted a sage nod, though she utterly failed at it because of the wicked smile lighting on her lips. "Understood. Usually one smoldering glance has their brain cells self-destructing so no one's ever called you on how un-Casanova-like you are, I know, I know." She waved a hand at him. "Eat your food, it's getting cold."

"I'm sorry." The words burst out with no warning, flying past his lips like sentient beings. Minato cursed mentally; what was it about this woman that made him shed years of ingrained habit—to plan ahead, to measure words, to deliberate actions—and start flying by the seat of his pants?

In any case, he thought, with a sickening sort of feeling shifting in his chest, he'd said it. He waited for her response with baited breath.

* * *

"About what you said in the hospital the other day?" Her voice had lost its teasing lilt, and adjusted; it was softer now, more thoughtful.

She chewed on a bit of beef to buy her some time to think, then wrinkled her nose and came to a decision: Kushina, if anything, was straightforward and, if she wanted an honest friendship with Minato and she wanted to be honest with herself, she was going to say what she needed to say. And that would be that—he could deal with the rest.

"Well," she said stonily, frowning into her noodles, "you _should_ be."

He said nothing, but she felt him stirring at her side, heard the soft jersey material of his shirt brush his flak jacket.

"But I should be, too." She turned her head to look at him full-on. "What I did _was_ reckless and irresponsible. The odds were terrible and I should have planned beyond the initial step of 'stick my kunai in hard-to-reach places in the enemy's bodies'. You were right about that part, and I'm sorry I put myself in such a dangerous situation without a back-up plan." She shot him a quick, hard smile. "But that's _all_ I'm apologizing for. I'm _not_ sorry I took those Iwa-nin on and I'm _not_ sorry that I didn't leave them for you to mop up: you were engaged with an enemy far more dangerous than any of us could take on, and you were my teammate. It was only natural that I did my best to defend you from the small fry. I'm just sorry I did such a shoddy job of it."

His eyes bored into hers. "I shouldn't have said that," he said after a beat of silence, agitation creeping into his voice. "You were…what you did was…admirable. _More_ than admirable. What I should have said was thank you." He licked his lips, sheepishness skittering across his face. She found it strangely adorable. "So thank you, Kushina-san."

Her cheeks were heating up again, but this time it was a more pleasant sensation. "All's well, then," she chirped, voice a bit higher than normal. She happily resumed polishing off her meal.

He, however, continued staring at her, a wrinkle working itself in-between his brows. He wasn't done yet.

Unfortunately for him, Kushina was.

"Don't explain why you were angry," she said, cutting him off when he opened his mouth to say more, her tone brooking no argument. "Big stupid hero complex. I know already. You felt responsible for me, and thus felt as though you had failed me or something retarded like that when you got to me after that run-in with the sensor." She glowed at him. "I'm _not_ going to tolerate that attitude, you know. I may be weaker than you, but I'm not a ninja that goes on missions to be _protected_." She spat the word out as though it tasted sour. "I go on missions because I'm capable, I'm strong, and I'm reasonably intelligent. It's one thing to act as a team and defend your teammates, but it's quite another to take on their responsibilities to protect them from themselves and from the mission. I appreciate help when I'm outmatched, but I don't _need_ someone to be on the constant look-out for my safety. Do me a favor, Minato, and don't belittle my pride that way."

He stared at her for a long moment, then ran a hand over his eyes and though his hair. When she saw his face again, there was something tired and resigned about his rueful smile.

"I suppose I should apologize for that as well. Do you want to know why I acted that way?" he asked.

Did she? She studied his face, eyes following the yellow strands of hair that fell over his hitae-ate and over his eyes and across his cheeks as she considered. There were so many pieces of him that she still didn't know, parcels of himself that he kept hidden underneath an unbreakable mask of smiling, deadly perfection, so much of him ghosting around her, just out of her reach.

Silence threaded around them for a long, complicated moment.

"I don't think I have the right to know," she said at last. "We're ninja, right? We all have our own personal ghosts. We carry them everywhere, in our pockets, in our kunai holsters, in our most secret places. And, to be perfectly honest…I don't think that either of us is ready to share our ghost stories yet."

He watched her intently, eyes a blazing blue, too many emotions flitting across his face for her to read. Goosebumps ran down her arms. She drew a fortifying breath. "We're all _kinds_ of screwed up, you know. There are things broken inside of us that no one can fix. We all have things we failed to protect. Even you, you genius. We're ninja. But, sometimes, I think we forget that we're human too, and because of that, all we can do is just _live_. We have to trust in the fact that we still have life in us, trust in our friends, and try not to let our ghosts eat us alive." She patted the back of his hand with her fingers, let them linger a touch more than necessary. "I don't know you very well, Minato. And I want to know you before I meet your ghost."

Something changed in his face then, almost imperceptibly—the slight upwards tilt of his mouth, the gentler angling of his brows, the softer jut of his chin, the pause in the shifting shadows in his eyes—but she saw it, and wondered what it meant, and if it meant what she wanted it to mean.

"And you," he asked, voice slightly husky, "will you introduce me to your ghost someday?"

The hand holding chopsticks stilled of its own accord. She swallowed. "Maybe someday. If I let you meet them now, how will you know which one of us is real? Them or me?"

He said nothing, just stared into her face with his astonishingly bright eyes, with too many emotions swilling in them for her to decipher. For a long moment, neither of them moved, until he lifted a hand and, with infinite gentleness, tucked a lock of hair behind her right ear, rough fingertips just skimming her cheek. They held themselves suspended in a dimension of their own making, eyes locked and wide open. Kushina forgot to breathe.

"Ah, damn it!" Teuchi-san swore loudly as he burned a grill full of meat, which effectively, if rudely, jerked her back to reality, and sent air whooshing back into her lungs.

They both looked away simultaneously. He cleared his throat and deposited a large chunk of beef into his mouth while she scrambled for something to say as her entire face reddened.

"Also, I should probably thank you for saving my life. And for taking care of that last Iwa-nin. And for carrying me back, I suppose." She jabbed her chopsticks in his general direction. "Damn, Minato. Why the hell are your insides the ones that are tied in knots? I'm the one who should be guilty here."

He shook his head, traces of consternation finally gone from his expression, and smiled blithely. "You were my teammate. What, did you expect me to sit around and do nothing?"

"Bastard," she snorted, "you can't throw my own words back at me like that. It's unfair." The sudden shift in the tone of their conversation, from emotionally charged discussions to jocularity made her feel a tad lightheaded. She quickly slurped the last of her noodles and slapped her half of the bill on the counter.

"This was my treat, Kushina-san," he said, eying her money disapprovingly.

"I'm on leave, not unemployed," she quipped, smiling impishly. "And this was just lunch, not a date." Blood was rushing to her face again, making it redder than ever, but Kushina steadfastly ignored it and the fact that she probably bore a strong resemblance to an overripe radish. She hopped off the stool, collected her worn suede messenger bag, and said, "See you later, Minato."

He raised his eyebrows at her, but said nothing.

She turned and strode off determinedly. Let him think of that what he would—she had dropped enough hints (or just one really big anvil-sized one, but Kushina decided that, in this case, maybe overkill was a good thing). She had left that door swinging wide open, and it was up to him whether or not he stepped through it.

The blue sky stretched out above her, bright and clear as Minato's eyes; life beat in her chest; she felt like she might leap for the sun and maybe even make it. She wanted to fling out her arms and dance, laugh at the world until her sides split, and perhaps leap off a cliff to see if she could fly.

She didn't do any of those things, though. Instead, she went home and waited for Minato's call and inevitable invitation to dinner for the following night.

* * *

A few dates later, as Minato brushed her lips against her cheek as he bid her goodnight in front of her door, Kushina rapidly came to a decision.

And hauled him inside her apartment by his tie seconds later. She shut the door firmly behind them--she did want to have sex with him very badly, after all, and though his gentlemanly nature was very sweet, she just didn't have that kind of patience.

* * *


End file.
